Addiction
by EFAW
Summary: He had a horrible addiction. No matter what he did, nothing could ever stop it. And he couldn't let it out. Except when he was alone. Only when he was alone... Oneshot


This story had been edited. This is the revised version with all of the misspellings and punctuation stuff fixed.

I own neither Gundam Wing nor the twelve Evanescence songs off their Fallen CD, though I dearly wish I did, because they're both beautiful. Sadly, they are owned by their respective owners, and all I own are the plot in this story, however random and mish-meshed it. So, I hope you enjoy!

**OOOO**

**Addiction**

_Now I will tell you what I've done for you _

_Fifty thousand tears I've cried_

He sat in front of the sofa, his cheeks wet. In the glow of the TV, the only light on in the little room, his face was flushed an eerie pale blue, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. There was a bottle of water in his hand, but wistful glances at it every now and then showed that he dearly wished it was something stronger.

_Just what we all need _

_More lies about a world that_

_Never was and never will be_

The lady on the news was smiling, saying something about peace being on the horizon. He snorted at that. He was in the war, he knew how far away from the truth that was. There was no way that this war was going to be won without more innocents losing their precious lives. Life was the greatest gift in the world, wasn't it? Then why, he asked the news reporter, why did people so carelessly throw other people's lives away like trash?

With a sigh, he leaned back on the sofa, taking another drink from the water bottle. He poured some of the liquid on his hand, letting the drops slide down his slender fingers. The coolness was refreshing in the summer heat, but only just. The safehouse wasn't air-conditioned, and when the others got there, it would be even more unbearable than it was. For now, though, he was alone, and he could enjoy the solitude. He flicked off the TV and walked upstairs to the bathroom, closing the door behind him, even though there was no one else in the house. He looked in the mirror.

_Without the mask _

_Where will you hide? _

_Can't find yourself_

_Lost in your lie _

He ran a long finger down the length of the mirror, tracing his reflection in the glass. Start at the temple, down the cheek, around the chin, up the other cheek and across the cheekbone, pausing just under one tired eye, then quickly skipping over the nose to rest under the other eye. Without warning, the expressionless face broke out into a large smile, the eyes seemed to light up, and the finger traced pale lips around the cheery accessory. Then, just as suddenly, the mask dropped, the eyes dulled, and the face was once more tired, world-weary, and expressionless.

_I look in the mirror and see your face _

_If I look deep enough_

_So many things inside that are_

_Just like you_

_Are taking over _

How could no one else see? How could no one else guess that there was no trueness in the smiles, no care in the carefully handed out concern? It was so _easy_ for him to see it. He saw it every time he looked in the mirror. But his mask was so seamless, so damn _perfect_, that no one saw the truth beneath it. He let out a shuddering sob, slamming his fist into the glass, though he had no strength to actually break it. His fist slid down the glass, a new onslaught of tears pouring down his cheeks, while his reflection just stared impassively back at him.

He just wanted this all to stop. He just wanted something real he could hold onto until this all stopped.

_Catch me as I fall _

_Say you're here and it's all over now_

_Speaking to the atmosphere_

_No one's here and I fall into myself_

_This truth drives me into madness _

_But who can decide what they dream? _

_And dream I do… _

He wrapped his arms around himself, longing, _needing_ the warmth of another human being. But no one was here. There was no one else around. He continued to sob quietly, closing his eyes against the pain. This always happened. He always relived everything. Every kill, every life shattered, he could see them all. Every night, he dreamed about them, every fragile, shattered life, every breathless, bleeding body. And on nights like tonight, when there was no one else, when there was no reason to keep the mask up, the memories took over, forcing their way out of him. He whimpered pitifully and curled up on the bathroom floor as the memories threatened to overwhelm him.

_Has no one told you she's not breathing? _

_Hello_

_I'm your mind_

_Giving you someone to talk to _

Ah, this one was one he saw often. A woman knelt in the street of a burning city, wailing like some lost, wounded animal, tears running down her face, just kneeling there, kneeling there, while people rushed about her, the city burned down around her. In her arms she held a battered body, open eyes staring blankly nowhere. The mother kept wailing, even as shrapnel cut her body from the explosion of the gas station next door, even as the blood ran down her face onto her still daughter's. He watched it all in a mixture of confusion of horror and sadness and guilt, wondering how people could do such a thing, then remembering that he, too, was a part of this, that he could have been the one who killed that little girl, who tore that mother's life away from her.

_Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies _

_So I don't know what's real and what's not_

_Always confusing the thoughts in my head_

_So I can't trust myself anymore _

They had been fed so many lies, the five of them. They had been told to do something which would help the war, would take one step closer to the end, when it was really nothing more than a way to get the message across that they were not to be messed with. He had seen so many things in these many battles, in this endless fighting, and he had so many morals and right torn apart. He didn't know who to trust. So he kept fighting, because there was nothing else he could do. All he could do was continue to take these orders so ruthlessly handed out to him and his teammates.

_Hunting you I can smell you-alive _

_Your heart pounding in my head _

It wasn't so much the fighting he hated. He probably would have been able to live with what he had done, though it would take a long time to forgive himself. He could have done that, too, if it weren't for one thing – he enjoyed it. He loved the sound of the enemy's heart racing as they realized there was no escape from death, loved the bitter, metallic smell of the lifeblood so precious as it poured out of the broken clay bodies that held it. He loved the screams, the burning, the explosions. But most of all, he loved the fact that _he was doing it all_. Sure, after the fact, after the adrenaline rush ran off, he hated himself, and he most nights, he cried himself to sleep. But no matter what he did afterwards could overshadow the truth: he enjoyed it, and he wanted more.

_Because your presence still lingers here _

_And it won't leave me alone_

_These wounds won't seem to heal_

_This pain is just too real_

_There's just too much that time cannot erase _

It was a horrible, deadly addiction. It was one that he never should have let flower and grow. But he couldn't help himself. He loved it, _craved_ for it to happen again. Nothing he had ever had let him feel the way he did as he destroyed. Nothing he had ever had had given him that complete feeling of power, of lordship, as he chose who died and who didn't, and he killed with his own hands.

But then the high died, and the full impact of what he had done came to him, and he hated himself for it, _hated himself_ for it. That's why he lived every nightmare he had seen, every horrible thing he had done, because he was a monster, a horrible, deadly, addicted monster who played god with other people's lives.

A soft wailing started, growing louder and louder in volume throughout the silent house.

_Call my name and save me from the dark _

_Bid my blood to run before I come undone_

_Save me from the nothing I've become _

He just wanted someone to help him, to pull him out of this hole he kept digging, deeper and deeper. He just wanted someone who would understand, who would hold him and tell him that everything would be okay, that everything was going to get better, even though they would both know the other was lying. He just wanted someone to come to his rescue, someone that would stop this addiction of his, who wouldn't recoil in horror when they knew.

He just wanted someone to love.

_Do you remember me? _

_Lost for so long_

_Will you be on the other side?_

_Or will you forget me? _

'A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.' He couldn't remember if he had read that, or if he had heard it from somewhere, but it was a good quote. He wondered if anyone would speak his name if he died, if anyone would care, or if he would become just another name on stone, just another wartime statistic. He wondered of anyone would cry. People would mourn, but for what he was, not who he was. They would mourn for the body, but not for the person inside the clay. And, not for the first, and certainly not the last, he wondered if there was any point, if there was any reason to continue living. Life was precious, he knew that, he agreed with that.

Just not his.

After all, he was just a monster, right? He was truly just a tool used by the government, by the doctors, to achieve their goal. And when a tool got broken, unless it was expensive or hard to come by, the tool was thrown away. Like a vase, he was cracking, slowly shattering, piece by piece, and he knew that if he finally broke, he would just be thrown away and replaced. He was worthless. So was there any point to life? There seemed no end to the continuous slaughter, no point to this eternal fighting. No worth in his existence, as he was an expendable tool to be replaced when broken. With tears still streaming from his eyes, down his face, he dug sharpened nails into his arm, tearing the flesh, ripping the upper arm to shreds. With deliberate care, he started to run his now slick nails down his forearm, painting the pale skin with a grotesque crimson art.

_I lay dying _

_And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal_

_I'm dying_

_Praying_

_Bleeding_

_And screaming_

_Am I too lost to be saved_

_Am I too lost? _

The blood held his gaze, as it ran down his arm and onto the floor, staining the light beige bathroom rug. But he didn't notice, didn't care. The crimson liquid captivated, hypnotized him. Again, he wondered if he could do it, if he could kill himself. There wasn't any pain, just a calm numbness, the calm before the storm. His nails were poised over his wrist, dug in just enough to break the skin, but not deep enough to make loss of blood fatal. He so wanted this pain to end, wanted the memories to stop, wanted the screams of those he had killed to stop resounding through his mind every night. He was shattering, slowly and surely, dying piece by fragile piece. But something kept him from plunging his fingers that final depth, kept him from ending this torment. And then, his head bowed, he withdrew his fingers from his arm, holding his bloodstained hands on his lap.

_Don't say I'm out of touch _

_With this rampant chaos – your reality_

_I know well what lies beyond me sleeping refuge_

_The nightmare I've built my own world to escape _

He pitied the fools out there who had no idea what was going on, who had no idea what was really happening in space. The people who could turn on their TVs, and believe the lies they were fed, because they didn't know any better. He pitied them, because they would probably never know the horrors of war, they would never knew what it was like to have the blood of innocents stained on their hands. Those people would never knew why the war veterans would come back changed, why they would flinch away from touch, why they would jump at every car backfire, at every gunshot on TV or video game. Those blissfully ignorant people he pitied, for they would never know the truth.

_Closing your eyes to disappear _

_You pray your dreams will leave you here_

_But still you wake and know the truth_

_No one's there _

And yet, those ignorant, innocent people, he envied. He was jealous of those lie-fed people, of those families sitting calmly in front of their TVs for dinner, unaware as to what's really happening around the world. He wished so much to be a part of them, to be blissfully unaware, to be able to life normally. He wanted, longed to be out of this war. He wasn't even a legal adult, hadn't even turned eighteen, and he was fighting this war. He was still a child!

But that was why he couldn't kill himself. Only a child could do what he and his teammates did. Only a child could pilot the mobile suits they rode. Only a child, only a child…and wasn't the breakage of one tool better than the forging of another, who would either break, or harden into something unrecognizable? He couldn't imagine wishing his pain onto another, onto an innocent child, yet that's what would happen. If he killed himself, if he died in battle, he would just be replaced, by someone his age, or perhaps younger, and he couldn't do that. There wasn't enough innocence in this world anyway, he couldn't break even one strand of that delicate web. That's why he couldn't do it. Because another child should never have to endure what he had. That was why he couldn't kill himself. That was why he had to stay alive, no matter what happened. Maybe after, if the war ever did end, but not while the fighting still raged.

_I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems _

_Got to open my eyes to everything_

_Without a thought without a voice without a soul_

_Don't let me die there must be something more_

Bring me to life 

Slowly, he stood up, clutching his wounded arm, staggering over to the medicine chest above the sink, the steps of an old man. Though he was youthful in appearance, he had seen too much, known too much. He would never be youthful, except through his mask. He grabbed a roll of medical gauze and started to bandage up his arm, not even bothering to wash the excess blood away. He could wash up tomorrow, when he knew the others were going to come. He would clean the blood out of the bathroom tonight, but he didn't need to wash the blood off himself until he had to. It served as a reminder. As long as he wore something long-sleeved to bed, he wouldn't get any blood on the sheets or blankets, and no one would suspect a thing. It would probably make him suffer horribly, to sleep all covered up like that in this heat, but he would do anything to keep the others from finding out the truth. Besides, he deserved all the suffering he got.

_Fallen angels at my feet _

_Whispered voices at me ear_

_Death before my eyes_

_Lying next to me I fear_

_She beckons me shall I give in_

_Upon my end shall I begin_

_Forsaking all I've fallen for I rise to meet the end_

He wet a washcloth and started to wipe at the tiles, ignoring the haunting voices he heard at the edge of his vision. The rug would have to go, because unless he wanted to dye the whole thing crimson, there was no way to get the red out of the beige. And it was a pretty big rug, so he was going to pass on that option. He rinsed the cloth in the sink and wet it again. Every time he swiped at the bloodied tiles, he could hear that little voice in the back of his mind, telling him to die, to just make it all stop, but he ignored that, too. He had to focus on the task at hand, focus on cleaning up so that the others wouldn't realize that anything was wrong, wouldn't notice that there was something odd going on. Again, he swiped at the tiles, easily falling into a mindless rhythm. Swipe, rinse, swipe, rinse, just focus, don't think about anything, don't think, focus on the cleaning, swipe, rinse, swipe, rinse…

_In my field of paper flowers _

_And candy clouds of lullaby_

_I lie inside myself for hours_

_And watch my purple sky fly over me _

He kept up the rhythm for hours, swipe, rinse, swipe, rinse, blank eyes starting straight ahead, never looking down, never caring, never straying from one little spot on the wall. Eventually, all of the red was gone, and he just kept on: swipe, rinse, swipe rinse, as it was better than stopping, because if he stopped, he would think, and if he thought, he would remember, and if he remembered, he might not be able to stop himself this time. Swipe, rinse, swipe, rinse…

_Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming _

_Cannot cease for the fear of silent night_

_Oh how I long for the dear sweet dreaming_

_The goddess of imaginary light_

Finally, even he couldn't keep up the task. He slowed in his rhythm, and then stopped, staring blankly at the wall. Then he stood on wobbly legs, grabbing the ruined rug and washcloth, and staggered out of the bathroom, stepping outside long enough to dump the offending items in the garbage before heading unsteadily back inside. He picked up his fallen water bottle, again, longing for something much stronger, and turned on a CD, loud heavy music washing over him in a flood of sound. Anything to cease this accusing silence. Then, as the music went on, he started to cry once more, screaming out all of his frustration and anger and pain, all locked inside, all allowed to release in this sheltered empty safehouse, this lonely abandoned building. How he wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but he knew that even in sleep, his murders would haunt him. So he stayed awake, and he stayed alive, and he kept screaming, drowned out by the music, and he hated himself every minute of it.

_Look here she comes now_

_Bow down and stare in wonder_

_Oh how we love you_

_No flaws when your pretending _

Dawn came, and he washed, awaiting the midday hour. When noon finally came, he stood on the doorstep, awaiting the other four pilots to come, his smiling mask back once more on his face. Then, out of the woods, they came, led to this abandoned location by a solitary e-mail, not knowing if it was true or trap. They all relaxed when they saw him sitting on the step, waiting for them, and he smiled and greeted each and every one in his way, keeping his eyes from making contact with the others.

_How can you see into my eyes like open doors _

_Leading you down into my core _

_Where I've become so numb without a soul_

_My spirit sleeping somewhere cold _

Except for one. Only one pair of eyes did he catch, and he saw the shock and worry grow as the other realized that something was wrong, something had happened. But he quickly smiled and turned, outwardly laughing as he went to prepare lunch, while inwardly he was breaking, wishing, praying, hoping that the other would follow, would question what was wrong. But no one came, as they all went to their little rooms in the safehouse, as they all deposited their stuff on their beds.

_Don't turn away _

_Don't give into the pain_

_Don't try to hide_

_Though they're screaming your name_

_Don't close your eyes_

_God knows what lies behind them_

_Don't turn out the light_

Never sleep never die 

He prepared the meager sandwiches, and they all came back, settling down to their meal, acting cheerful even though they knew what would come during the day. He talked and chatted with all of them, but refused to so much as look at the other, who he knew would immediately turn to concern and worry. The others thought it unusual, but they didn't question it. They never did. He was glad for that, though at the same time, he was silently begging for the other to ask anyway, for the other to just come out and voice his concern, even if he looked foolish when he cheerfully denied any problem. But nothing happened, and he died a little on the inside at the thought that maybe he wasn't cared about. All he and to do was last until the war ended, and then he would be able to stop this pain and worry. At that thought, a relieved smile graced his face, and he laughed at something someone had said, and, in the middle of the war, with the knowledge of what was going to come, his laughter was appreciated, was needed. At least he was good for something.

_I'm frightened by what I see _

_But somehow I know that there's much more to come_

_Immobilized by my fear_

_And soon to be blinded by tears _

The mission came, and the boarded their suits, so carefully hidden in the vast forest. He didn't want to go, because he knew what would happen. He would see that first flank of enemy suits, and the adrenaline would start to pump, and he would fight, and love it, love the blood and the screams and the fear, and he wouldn't be able to stop until they all were destroyed. And he would hate himself afterwards, would cry and think of suicide again, but he would love it while it was actually happening. He knew that would happen, and he didn't want to go, but there was really no choice. So he shot of into space with the other four pilots, and he saw that first flank of enemy suits, and, just like he had predicted, the adrenaline started to course through his body, and he couldn't stop it.

So he let his addiction grow.

And he hated himself for it.

**OOOO**

This is my first songfic, using a collection of Evanescence songs, if you couldn't figure that out, all mish-meshed together. I couldn't think of a theme for a fic for just one song, but when I tied a bunch together, it actually seemed to work.

This fic didn't have any set characters, so you can choose who it was about, since no names were spoken at all whatsoever. I hope you liked it, and so I hope you will review and tell me what you liked, what you didn't, etc, etc.

The quote 'A man is not dead while his name is still spoken' I borrowed from Terry Pratchett's new book Going Postal, which I read in less than two days. I do not own the quote or the book or the author, though I think that both the quote and the book are very good.


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